Niger River

Just how long does it take to get from here to Timbuktu? Three hours by plane, or five days by riverboat is what Marcella and I were told, here being Bamako, Mali. "Maybe one week by boat if there are difficulties," said the Malian travel agent. Difficulties? He refused to elaborate, but other survivors told us their own nautical horror stories. "I was sure I was going to die from an acute attack of malaria," recounted friend Tim.

Just how long does it take to get from here to Timbuktu? Three hours by plane, or five days by riverboat is what Marcella and I were told, here being Bamako, Mali. "Maybe one week by boat if there are difficulties," said the Malian travel agent. Difficulties? He refused to elaborate, but other survivors told us their own nautical horror stories. "I was sure I was going to die from an acute attack of malaria," recounted friend Tim.

Two passenger boats collided off the southeast coast of Nigeria, and about 100 people were feared killed, transport officials reported. The two boats were each carrying more than 300 passengers when they collided near the Niger River delta off Port Harcourt, the officials said. No foreigners were reported aboard either of the boats.

The military government deployed more troops in the oil-producing Niger River Delta, where youth protests are threatening the nation's revenue base. Residents said military checkpoints were set up in the area, where up to 26 people have died in a week of protests by ethnic Ijaw youths demanding a greater share of the region's wealth.

A large dugout canoe capsized on the Niger River, drowning at least 30 of its 50 passengers, Nigerian officials said. Dugout canoes are a major means of transport in communities along the river, and accidents are common. The boat capsized Thursday while crossing a reservoir near Besse, a farming and fishing town in the northwestern state of Kebbi, said Sani Isgogo, a Ministry of Water Resources official.

Re your April 29 article on oil exploration in the Niger River Delta: Shell official Basil Efoise Omiyi's bragging about the progressive community support the company has "gone out of its way" to give to residents of the Niger Delta is the cheapest of PR tactics. The community projects, like the flowers an abusive man brings after beating his spouse to a pulp, are inadequate compensation and irrelevant to recovery. Omiyi concludes with the disingenuous pronouncement, "To expect us to change the government is something you shouldn't expect from a corporate body."

Microsoft's adventure travel Mungo Park Web site, named for the intrepid Scottish explorer who disappeared while navigating the Niger River, is meeting a similar fate in the choppy waters of Internet commerce. As of Feb. 6, the site (http://www.mungopark.com) will stop offering real-time reports of adventures around the world, although users will still be able to access previous stories.

A Soviet-built passenger turboprop of Air Mali crashed Friday soon after taking off from the desert outpost of Timbuktu, killing all but one of the 51 people aboard, officials at the airline's headquarters here reported. The surviving passenger was said to be in critical condition. Sketchy reports said that a dozen or so foreigners were among the dead, but the African airline did not release the passenger list for the domestic flight, which contained only last names of those aboard. U.S.

The most advanced radar ever sent into space by NASA peered beneath the sand of the Sahara Desert on Monday for traces of ancient river channels and lost civilizations. Two days into the 10-day flight, the radar aboard space shuttle Endeavour had mapped about 3 million square miles of Earth's surface, an area equivalent to half the United States.

Militant youths Friday freed 165 oil workers, including seven Americans, after holding them several days on two Shell Oil Co. rigs, company officials said. The youths vacated the two flow stations in the southeastern state of Bayelsa about 5 p.m., a Shell official said on condition of anonymity. An agreement was reached Wednesday with representatives of the youths to free the hostages the next day.

A gunman on a motorcycle shot dead a U.S. executive in Nigeria's oil heartland Wednesday, authorities said. Militants who have attacked the oil industry for five months said they had no hand in the killing of the executive, who worked for Texas oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. A diplomat and oil industry source said it was more likely the slaying was linked to a work-related dispute.